Faces in the Sky

What does an accomplished astrophotographer do when it’s cloudy for more than two months in a row, and getting new photos of the night sky is impossible?

Why, play with pictures he’s already taken, of course. But J-P Metsävainio did more than that: Looking through his amazing collection of gorgeous astronomical photos he’s taken over the years, he started seeing familiar objects in the nebulae, galaxies, and other cosmic objects. With time on his hands, he created a really, really funny gallery of cosmic pareidolia—things that look like other things.

As they say, a picture’s worth a thousand words. The photo at the top of this post is a great example of seeing faces in objects (that’s part of the Veil Nebula, the expanding debris from a supernova, and it’s several light-years across), but I have to admit, Metsävainio is on to something with this shot of the Red Ghost (aka IC 63):

The Death Eater Nebula

Photo by J-P Metsävainio, used by permission

Some of his examples are well-known, like the Pelican, the Heart, and (seriously) the Pac-Man nebula. But he has a lot of others that took a bit of imagination but are obvious once you see them. Several made me laugh …

In my defense, those structures ARE where stars are being born.

Photo by J-P Metsävainio, used by permission

If I had to pick a favorite, I’d go with this one, because I don’t know why but it’s perfect and weird and I never would’ve thought of it myself: